While opposition to data centers continues to grow, including here in northeast Indiana, Allen County's project is already well into construction.
A few weeks ago, in the middle of November, more than a hundred people showed up to make sure the Indiana Department of Environmental Management heard their opposition to a data center being built in southeast Fort Wayne.
“We’re not just here to defend our neighborhoods in the backyard of this data center, we’re here to defend everyone down river," Kelly Atkins said to represenatives from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management at a hearing about the latest request from the Google data center. At the end of the hearing, the crowd of speakers began chanting at the representatives; "Deny, deny, deny."
Hatchworks LLC, a subsidiary of Google, is requesting an additional 143 diesel generators to support the campus.
To understand the opposition to the build, first, a look at how the data center came to Fort Wayne, when it was known only as “Project Zodiac.”
How the data center came to Fort Wayne
In October of 2023, what was then described as an “unnamed Fortune 100 company” proposed a data center campus around Adams Center and Paulding roads, using nearly 900 acres of land and requiring an annexation of more than 700 acres into Fort Wayne.
The months that followed included a “super-voluntary” annexation, land sale and tax abatement approvals. In January 2024, after everything was finalized, the anonymous company’s name was released; Google would be building a data center campus with up to 12 buildings.
Community development director Jonathan Leist recalled how the property sale went through.
“So we sold our portion of the property for a little less than $12 million, $11.4 (million) I believe, something like that," Leist said. "So that was over and above our last appraisal that we had of the property. So definitely market rate on the land sale.”
In December 2023, Mayor Sharon Tucker was still serving as the city council representative for the sixth district, the area where the data center is currently being built. Following a visit to a similar data center in Columbus, Ohio, at the December 22, 2023 city council meeting, Tucker spoke in favor of approving the project.
“There have been a multitude of bad projects that have tried to be dumped on the south side and I have fought every single one of them," Tucker said at the December 2023 meeting. "This is not one, council, that I’m fighting.”
In her visit to the campus in Columbus, joined by Leist, he said their concerns specifically about sound pollution diminished.
"I think what we saw and heard there was that the only sound really being emitted was construction," Leist said. "Like there was no unique data center sound that I think people in other locations had.”
A change in the energy landscape
The Midwest has become something of a breeding ground for data centers, due to cooler temperatures that require less energy-intensive cooling than Southern states. Great Lakes states like Indiana, Ohio and Michigan have seen a boom in data center builds over the last several years.
There are 72 facilities under construction in Indiana alone.
Earlier this year, the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan published a study into what happens when data centers come to towns.
The study found that, while many data centers propose to eventually run entirely on green energy, the green energy needed for that much energy running all the time isn’t currently possible.
And in cases like Fort Wayne, the company then asks for more of the old energy sources.
Molly Kleinman is the managing director of the science, technology and public policy program at the Ford School.
“I haven’t seen solid justification for the humungous embrace of as much energy, dirty as it needs to be, as we can get now, and we’ll worry about clean energy down the line," Kleinman said.
But it isn’t just about not using green energy. In many cases, the issue is the way data centers have increased reliance on fossil fuels. In many areas, increased energy needs from data centers are helping coal and gas plants slated for closure to find a second life.
“We’ve seen that data centers have eaten up all of the renewable capacity that the countries added over the last several years, and then gone beyond it," Kleinman said. "They have essentially canceled out all of the gains that we had previously made in renewables.”
Bryce Gustafson is program organizer with Citizens Action Coalition, a consumer and environmental advocacy group based out of Indianapolis.
“This may come as a shock to some people, but Indiana was on a trajectory of getting away from fossil fuels," he said. "This has completely upended that trajectory.”
Indiana Michigan Power just got permission to acquire an existing 870-megawatt gas-fired power plant in Ohio. NIPSCO announced plans in September to build a natural gas plant, through separate company NIPSCO GenCo, to address the increased needs from data centers throughout the state.
A large investment to the city
When city officials approved the Google data center for southeast Fort Wayne, they agreed to a somewhat unusual tax abatement. Fort Wayne community development director Jonathan Leist explains;
"We knew we were up against some other locations, some other states, so we wanted to be competitive. And so rather than our traditional phase in which has a lower amount in the beginning of taxes paid and a higher amount abated, the company, they were comfortable, and we were comfortable with a 50% kind of across the board, which actually ends up being about the same amount as you would get on a 10 year.”
That means that in the year 2025, it changed how the property was evaluated and Google is expected to pay $1 million in property taxes this year. In an area of the city that’s already facing a $3 million cut in city investments, that $1 million is significant.
And, at the end of the full build on the property, Google will generate about $5.9 million per year in property taxes, according to Leist.
“So in this case, a very large investment," he said. "Larger than probably anything we had seen at least in the last five years, for sure, probably 10 years or more.”
In the nearly two years since the project was approved, Google has invested money through grants and donations into the community.
In April of 2024, the data center broke ground and, at that groundbreaking, announced initial investments to the Fort Wayne Early Learning Center and Just Neighbors Interfaith Homeless Network.
In October of this year, the Allen County Public Library received a $35,000 grant from Google for the Rolland Center for Lincoln Research.
Bryce Gustafson, program organizer with Citizens Action Coalition, says companies should give back to the communities they’re building in, but he questioned if what they’re giving is enough.
“I don’t begrudge that but, also, you have to take into account how much money they’re gonna save at the state-level through state sales tax exemptions," Gustafson said. "It would be great to have those numbers to compare because in some situations I’ve seen where ‘we’re gonna give half a million dollars a year here,’ or ‘a million dollars there.’ In the grand scheme of things that’s a nickel to them.”
The environmental risks that data centers bring
With the benefit of economic impact comes potential environmental risks.
In Fort Wayne, the Google data center’s developer’s original plan
included 34 emergency diesel generators and took about three and three-quarters acres in wetlands. This year, developers were approved to take nearly 10 additional wetlands. They’ve more than quadrupled their request for diesel generators, now asking for an additional 143.
“Eighteen months ago, they knew, or should have known, at that time, that that was not enough to sustain their operations. Which means they submitted something that is in bad faith at best," Gina Burgess said.
The Google data center intends to use about 13 wetlands, which means destroying them and rebuilding them elsewhere. But does this wetland mitigation really cause no harm? It's not that simple. Constructed wetlands take a while to get established, don't always end up with the same ecosystems at the destroyed ones and can lead to more CO2 in the air.
Burgess showed up to speak at the hearing with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management about the request for more generators.
About 75 people spoke at that meeting, which took place in mid-November, but more than a hundred signed up to speak before the meeting ran out of time.
Every single person who spoke encouraged IDEM to deny the permit.
Resident Danielle Doepke spoke specifically about the health risks the diesel generators pose.
“Diesel exhaust has been classified as a group one carcinogen by internation and national organizations, meaning it is a definite cause of cancer in human," Doepke said. "Studies have found links between diesel exhaust and cancers of the lung, bladder, esophagus, stomach, pancreas, as well as blood cancers like lymphomas and leukemias."
Residents, especially those who live on the south side, expressed concern about air pollution from the generators. Designated as emergency generators, they are only allowed to run them 100 hours a year, about four total days.
The AI "bubble"
In September, a report found construction spending on data centers was at an all-time high of $40 billion in the U.S.
Molly Kleinman is with the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, which has been researching data centers. She says there’s a concern that most of these data centers are being built to support tech companies’ AI features and what might happen when the “AI bubble” pops.
"We’re hearing more and more experts weigh in that the way these giant data centers are being funded is not sustainable and, at some point, bubble’s pop.”
A response from city council
In October, WANE15 reported language in the contract between the city and DMI FW LLC, which bought the property for Hatchworks LLC, a subsidiary of Google, included a promise the city wouldn’t turn against Google if public opinion does.
While it makes sense from a business standpoint, Bryce Gustafson with Citizens Acton Coalition said it risks public officials losing their power to listen to the public.
“Normal people just don’t have the same level of power in these issues, so if your decision makers are taking away their power, the everyday Hoosier; What kind of power do they have?" He said.
In 2023, the city council approved the land sale to Hatchworks LLC unanimously. Though, some members of the current council had no hand in that decision.
Activist groups in Fort Wayne have recruited residents to show up at meetings like the IDEM hearing and city council over the past several weeks. They’ve been holding town halls of their own to share information about the center.
At the final city council meeting in November, residents showed up to offer further public comment to the council about the data center and Google’s request for a further 143 diesel generators.
City council has no power to deny the permit. It’s a decision that is in the hands of IDEM and subject to review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Despite that, fifth district representative Geoff Paddock, who is serving as council president through the end of the year, announced ahead of the public comment he was sending a letter to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management about the request.
"I am asking them to sit down with us, work with us, the city of Fort Wayne, Google, the Mayor’s office, city council members who may be interested, other interested parties to find an alternative," Paddock said.
Once again, residents expressed their concerns about air pollution...
"I already have to carry an emergency inhaler around with me, everywhere I go," said one young resident who spoke at the meeting. "I don’t really want to go outside and suffocate in the first two seconds after that data center is complete.”
Following public comment, councilmembers-at-large Chambers and Friestroffer agreed to work with Paddock, IDEM and Google to better understand the energy needs and the risks of the generators.
Sixth district councilwoman Rohli Booker attended a townhall put on by advocacy groups earlier in the month as well as the IDEM hearing. She commended those who spoke for their continued advocacy and how it has helped her advocate in meetings with Google.
“There are things that I heard at that IDEM hearing that I was able to shar with them – some of the solutions, some of the concerns, some of the health implications – that if I hadn’t attended, I would not have been able to do," Booker said.
Booker took on the role of sixth district representative after the data center was already under way.
Amid public hearings, council meetings and town halls, one voice has been missing from the conversation about the data center – Google.
Mayor Sharon Tucker, who has been a proponent of the build since she was still serving as the city council representative for the 6th district, said she’d like Google to work with the public.
“I do wish our Google partners would do what I’ve done and try to answer those concerns and so that would probably be the one thing that I am disappointed in, that they have not answered those cries of concern," she said.
Google hasn’t returned a request for comment.
Following public comment at the council meeting, Chambers said the city is planning a town hall that she hopes Google will attend.
Elsewhere in Indiana, communities are beginning to reject data center builds. Marshall, White and Putnam counties have enacted moratoriums on data centers until they better understand the impacts of them.
The public comment period on the requested extra diesel generators ended November 17, and IDEM has yet to announce a decision on the permit. Due to the requirement to address all comments received, both in writing and verbally, a representative for IDEM says it may take several months for a final permitting decision to be issued.
